When I call out these facts about people selling out their country for personal gain, that’s called “listening at the bedchamber.” Am I concerned about who’s engaged in palace intrigue again? Talking about which countries this country is fighting alongside, or which bureaucrat has forced whom out of office—that’s what “listening at the bedchamber” is.
I mean what you said about Zhang Zhaozhong—it feels kind of like some sort of secret insider story.
Moreover, the very term “obedience” is too strong, making it sound as though Chinese imperialism had no independent standing at the time. The reason Chinese imperialism adopted a weak and submissive attitude toward other imperialist countries in its early days was that it was still a weak imperialist power, while many remnants of the revolution remained at home. In order to hasten the dismantling of socialism and gain recognition and acceptance from the various imperialist countries, Chinese imperialism imported large amounts of foreign capital and sold off the achievements of socialist construction it had previously secured. That is an entirely different matter from whether or not it was obedient.
1 Like
I see.
It also became imperialist only later: because its domestic goods were not selling, the Chinese revisionist bourgeoisie sought to push into more distant overseas markets, and thus gradually turned the country into an imperialist state, a process that was formally completed in 2012.
I don’t think this can be considered a relationship of subordination; it was more a case of the Chinese revisionists, in their early period of restoration, urgently needing to consolidate their own regime and therefore colluding with Japanese imperialism. Through economic collusion with Japanese imperialism, they accelerated the destruction of the socialist economic foundations of our country, while importing large quantities of Japanese bourgeois literature and art as spiritual opium to launch an attack on the proletarian literary and artistic front, propagating such reactionary ideas as pornography and class reconciliation.
2 Likes
If it is said that China completed its transformation into a social-imperialist country in 2012, then in fact it had also been a state-capitalist country before that.
I think you have not grasped the basic concept of imperialism. Lenin gave the most essential definition of imperialism: “In its economic essence, imperialism is monopoly capitalism.” “If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, it should be said that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.” After capitalism was restored in China, are China’s means of production not in the hands of the bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie that seized power and came to rule? The answer is undoubtedly yes. The “acts of national humiliation” you mentioned cannot, in fact, shake the position of China’s bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie in the slightest. Comrade fxyc also quoted earlier from Socialist Political Economy: China, having previously been a country that had established the dictatorship of the proletariat, as well as the economic foundation and superstructure of socialism, would inevitably become an imperialist country once capitalist restoration occurred; it would not pass through a stage of primitive capital accumulation and free competition. As for your use of 2012 as the dividing line, I think you are primarily distinguishing between social systems on the basis of international status. This, in fact, is not incompatible with the Marxist definition of imperialism. The imperialist stage has five major characteristics, as shown below (from Political Economy: The Imperialism Section, Institute of Economic Research, Department of Political Economy, Nankai University):
Of these five basic characteristics, the last three concern international relations. After 2012, China’s international status did indeed rise rapidly, and it became, definitively, an imperialist country, even a superpower. But before that, it could by no means be said to have been a semi-colonial country. The improvement of its international status was indeed a process, but that does not change the fact that its primary character was imperialist.
3 Likes
It seems that you view this issue with a certain degree of nationalism and without regard to class. Deng the dog and the bureaucratic monopolist bourgeoisie he represented did not care about national interests in the slightest; in order to dismantle socialism’s economic foundation and superstructure, they were capable of doing anything. When they had just usurped power, how could socialist China suddenly have produced so many bourgeois writers, directors, and painters overnight? Nor could it have produced, within just a few years, works of decadent art comparable to those of imperialist countries. (In the early period after the restoration of capitalism, the arts still had to be cloaked in a red façade.) So, in order to promote bourgeois ideas, directly importing foreign works was the best choice. At the same time, Deng the dog was also frantically importing Hong Kong capitalist culture, for the same reason. As for Japan’s invasion of China, a bourgeoisie like Deng the dog’s simply would not care. As long as it made it convenient for him to bring in Japanese capital to destroy the socialist economic foundation, he could say whatever was necessary. The reason for the frenzied importation of all kinds of foreign capital at that time was also to launch a counterattack against the working class and settle accounts with it. After this foreign capital entered China, it directly adopted exploitative methods from imperialist countries: Taylorism, Fordism, various bonus incentives, and the principle of putting profits first. At the beginning of the restoration of capitalism, the bureaucratic monopolist bourgeoisie could not strip workers of all their democratic rights at once in the factories; this also had to be done step by step. The later frenzied push for so-called privatization of state-owned enterprises was likewise one step in this counterattack and settling of accounts.
At that time, China’s working class still had some formal democratic rights, such as workers’ congresses, and could still hold assemblies and organize demonstrations. But if foreign capital was brought in, then within foreign-funded enterprises there would be none of these things at all—no so-called democratic rights and no workers’ congresses. Although foreign countries formally allowed trade unions to be established, in China this right was effectively deprived. Moreover, at the time, state-owned enterprises were also carrying out mass layoffs, creating mass unemployment, while after collectivization was sabotaged by Deng the dog, the peasantry underwent massive polarization, with some going bankrupt and migrating to the cities. The monopolist bourgeoisie could not allow peasants to enter state-owned enterprises, because workers were still being laid off in those enterprises. At that point, domestic private capitalists and foreign capital could absorb these peasants and subject them to intense exploitation, preventing unemployed peasants from gathering in the cities and potentially launching resistance against the bureaucratic monopolist bourgeoisie. If they were absorbed into these capitalist enterprises, their strength could also be used to suppress them.
Moreover, the greatest difference between Deng the dog and a genuine bureaucratic comprador bourgeoisie was that they could not simply package and sell to foreign capitalists the enterprises controlling the lifelines of the national economy. Key industrial sectors such as steel, coal, petroleum, and later telecommunications and electricity were not controlled by foreign capital; in many of these sectors, foreign capital was not even allowed to intervene. In some sectors, foreign capital could invest, but the revisionist Chinese authorities stipulated that Chinese enterprises had to hold more than 51% of the shares. In other words, foreign capital was permitted to enter only when these joint ventures were under absolute majority ownership and control.
Although Deng the dog’s betrayal of national interests is indeed infuriating, we must still clearly understand his class character and the purpose behind his betrayal of national interests. If you call him a comprador, then you have completely misunderstood their nature.
5 Likes